"SYD?", IS THE ONLY thing Jeremy blurts out after he opens the door.

Sydney swallows noticeably. "Hey, Jer."

Jeremy is about the same height as me, which is remarkable. Right now he's running his hand over his three-day beard, lost in thought, as he stares his sister up and down. I'm struck by how similar they look ─ from the light blond hair to the blue eyes, everything is identical, the only difference is that Jeremy doesn't have freckles. Now, as he runs his hands through his hair in perplexity, they stick out in all directions, reminding me so much of Sydney that I wish I could have said it out loud.

Sydney's brother is, unfortunately, neither small nor thin nor harmless, rather he looks as if he is at least as well-trained as I am. Even though I don't intend to beat the shit out of Sydney's brother in the first place, I'm a bit more nervous now than I was a moment ago.

Suddenly, his eyes fall on me. "What the hell, Syd?"

Yeah, I guess that reaction is appropriate.

Sydney sighs, "Calm down, okay? This is ─"

"Dean Walker." Jeremy looks at me like I'm literally the pest. "I know exactly who he is. Do I need to be worried about you? Did you do something wrong, Sydney?"

"No, Dean's really perfectly fine," she says quickly, while I wonder how on earth we're going to convince her brother that I'm not about to murder him. "Please let us in first."

"I'll let you in, but not him," her brother immediately replies.

"Dean's totally fine," she says again, to which silence falls for a moment.

"I'm really not that bad," I mumble awkwardly.

Jeremy shakes his head, speechless. "Just an hour ago, you were being called a freewheeling murderer on the news."

"Murder suspect," I correct him.

Jeremy turns, more than angry, to his sister. "I don't know in what you've gotten yourself into here, but this is not good at all, Syd. Mom and Dad always wanted us around them for this kind of crap, and now you're hanging out with a murder suspect?"

"He's innocent," she counters with a stoic expression. "Pull that stick out of your ass that our parents shoved up your butt and trust me when I say Dean is innocent."

Jeremy still doesn't let us in immediately. He just stands there, his gaze shifting from Sydney to me and then back again. Then he sighs loudly. "I can't believe I'm actually doing this now. We haven't seen each other in years, Syd, and I'm worried about you."

He really lets us into the house. I look around extensively, still keeping an extra close eye on Sydney's brother because if he really calls the cops now, I'm really screwed. Sydney notices my uncertainty and squeezes my hand reassuringly. Well, actually, she crushes it more.

Jeremy directs us to the kitchen, where Sydney and I sit down. He pulls three cups out of the cupboard and reaches for a cocoa mix, after which Sydney's face lightens. There's her hot chocolate, and she also will get our shower together.

Like she has read my mind, she turns her attention to me and promptly blushes at the way I've been looking at her. Nevertheless, she does not look away.

Suddenly I hear footsteps behind me and jump up from my chair in alarm. In front of me is a woman in pajamas, just rubbing her eyes tiredly and looking at me in confusion. "What the ...?"

"Avery," is the only thing Jeremy says to her a little awkwardly.

She just shakes her head. "It's really amazing how quickly you go from one blunder to the next one, Jer."

I'm surprised at how calm her reaction is toward me because I'm sure she knows my name like Jeremy does, too.

Sydney's brother walks up to his fiancée and kisses her on the top of her head. "Are you so used to scenarios like this, that you're not even surprised anymore?"

Avery grins at him.

"What do you mean?" asks Sydney, confused. "Jer, are you in trouble?"

"I wouldn't call it 'trouble'."

"He's just like you," Avery interjects. "He gets himself involved in the most ominous situations without really knowing it. Maybe that's why you two are more like those apartments and Netflix people. Or are you still even that, Sydney? God, you've grown up so much. The last time we saw each other, you were ...?"

"Sixteen," Jeremy answers for her as his eyes rest on Sydney. "She was only sixteen."

She clears her throat and then breaks eye contact with him. You can tell by the look on her face that she suddenly can hardly tolerate being in this house, but I don't know how to make the situation better for her. Maybe we should leave again? But where exactly? Gavin is certainly still busy with Candice, and Bronwyn is probably sleeping now.

"Can we maybe shower here?" asks Sydney.

I knew it. She really wants to take a shower with me.

"You're welcome to stay until morning," Avery replies with a smile. "It's getting pretty late and we don't have anything against it."

"I do have something against him." Jeremy's attitude is provocative and hostile toward me.

The corners of my mouth lift anyway.

"Do you guys have a free room?" asks Sydney.

"Yeah, but only one," Jeremy replies, "We'll just push the beds as far as we can."

Avery rolls her eyes.

I like her. "We'll be gone by morning, I promise."

Avery shows us the room and the shower next door, in which Sydney disappears with a high redhead. Thankfully the beds don't get pushed apart and Jeremy doesn't bother to show up either. I guess he simply got into bed and fell asleep immediately.

Avery hands me some fresh towels. "I really don't want to be too direct, but .... do you like Sydney?"

My eyebrows pop up. "You call that 'not direct'?"

She laughs. "Sorry. I just noticed your looks and that's why I'm asking. And I just want to make sure you're not hurting her. I've known Sydney for ages and I just wish her only the best of the best, really, so if you're planning on just dropping her at the end ─ forced or even unforced ─ then please, don't give her any wrong hopes."

"What exactly do you mean by 'forced or even unforced'?", I ask confused.

"Well ... officially, it means that the police are pretty sure that you killed that girl. But I'm planning to become a cop myself after my college, so I know how much of a cover-up something like this can be, especially since your parents made horrible statements against you. That must be hard for you." Sympathetically, she looks at me. "But if you do end up being convicted, you'll have to let Sydney go. And that's not just going to hurt you, it's also going to hurt her."

I feel that she is simply a moralist, while I know all the things she just said myself. I know that the official word is, that I killed Hollyn, I know that the investigation is being covered up, and worst of all, by my parents themselves, and I know that it's actually completely wrong to fall in love with Sydney right now, because she deserves so much better.

I falter. Am I really falling in love with her now? Or did I just ... think it along? I'm confused.

As Avery leaves me alone, I somehow feel even more lost than before. Avery says that I may be convicted after all, and that's exactly what I'm thinking. But when I told Sydney my doubts earlier, she said that I am too pessimistic. But what am I supposed to think? If I keep my hopes up now, I'll be even more disappointed at the end when nothing really happened the way it did in my head.

Aside from all the things I don't know, I'm pretty sure of only one thing. I want Sydney. More than anything else. I wanted her from the moment I saw her at the college party and I still want her, even more than before. But to finally get her, I need to straighten things in my life somehow before I jump headfirst into something that can't work if I'm behind bars.

"Dean?" comes suddenly from the bathroom.

"Sydney?" I get up from the bed and rest my arms on the bathroom door as I stand in front of it. "Changed your mind about showering together?"

I can literally see her eye roll. "No, I'm already done, but I don't have a towel."

Grinning, I walk back into the guest room and grab the larger of the two towels. Standing outside the bathroom door again, I'm initially indecisive. "I'll just put it here for you, then you can ─"

Sydney opens the door.

Admittedly only far enough for me to see her head and neck, but nevertheless I stand there perplexed for a moment.

She laughs. "Just give me the towel now, Walker."

I spend a few more seconds with it, then I hand it over to her and go back to the guest room. It takes maybe another five minutes, then she comes back without her jeans and only in a loose T-shirt. I swallow hard as I shower as well, unable to get the image of her bare legs out of my head. A few minutes ago, I didn't want to jump into anything unknown, and now I'd love to jump into the shower on top of Sydney.

I really need to keep myself under control.

It seems that Avery gave Sydney a loose t-shirt earlier and a pair of long pajama pants for me. As I put them on, I wonder if Avery actually did that on purpose and if so, I don't know if I should really thank her for it. After all, it's going to be even harder to keep my hands to myself now.

Even packed toothbrushes are here, so I brush my teeth thoroughly. Then I take one last look in the mirror and try to mentally tell myself that I'll just say good night to Sydney and then go to sleep.

Nothing more will happen today, for sure.

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